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Each plays a different game. Only the general public and politicians make a fuss about this. The general public is shocked because they don't know, politicians act shocked because they must. People in Intelligence are a bit more clinical about it because they're not politicians. But even in the Intelligence Community, it's amazing how much gung-ho some former Intelligence Officers display.

You take "The Art of Intelligence" and it's so oversimplified and naive it's unbearable. I refuse to believe the author, an Ambassador at Large, thinks that way. His assets are brave and courageous, other nations' assets are traitors and evil. It's all good guys (him) vs. bad guys (others) and there's absolutely no way an Intelligence Officer, anywhere in the world, who is not mentally challenged, can think that way. It's people who don't know terrorism and have had nothing to do with it who have the most clear cut, black and white, views.

Contrast with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnEKEfkdrOU

Who says the exact same thing as Michael Scheuer (former Intelligence Officer tasked with Bin Laden).

https://youtu.be/E0dPy2XCst8?t=6m29s

Describing what he says as blunt is an understatement. In that video, he says some things about Bin Laden that would get anyone thrown in a hole somewhere for apologia for terrorism. That's almost a eulogy.



You are making the assumption that spying is common, so it is justified. Or even that if spying results in favorable outcome, that it's justified.

But I ask, favorable to whom?


>You are making the assumption that spying is common, so it is justified.

There isn't a single sentence in what I wrote where I made this assumption. This is what you perceived I assumed.

My point wasn't on the ethics of spying which I haven't addressed at all in my reply. My point was on the reaction different people have to spying.




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